Apple's own refurbs are indistinguishable from new. Same warranty, same everything. The box is a little plainer, but that's it.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Deals: Apple's M1 Mac Mini Drops to Best Ever Price of $569.99 ($129 Off)
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I bought this 4 weeks ago for that price from Best Buy. They priced match CostCo. I liked it so much, I traded it in a for an Air $850 when CostCo had the deal. Great machine even w/ 8gb 256GB storage. I just had external NVMe.
I have a Dell XPS 2720 all-in-one from 2014 that is showing its age. It has an HDMI in port because it's designed to double as a display, too. That means I could use it as a display for the Mini, right? If so, that would buy me time to shop for a larger monitor.
they should have made the product lineup:
Mac Mini -> Mac (Studio) --> Mac Pro
my OCD is triggered.
Mac Mini -> Mac (Studio) --> Mac Pro
my OCD is triggered.
You would be MUCH better off using a Synology DS-920+ then using a Mac Mini for your intended use. The Synology is also a little less expensive. Obviously, the D-920+ has better storage.
The 920's CPU is rated slower but when runing survialence and media and some other stuff all at once the CPU utilization is still low. The OS is dramatically more efficient.
Yep. I recently bought a 16gb/1tb refurb from the Apple online store, saved $150. And as usual for Apple refurbs, it was 100% indistinguishable from new, other than the plain white box. Same warranty etc. Absolutely no reason not to go with one of these, unless somebody has them new at the same or less cost.
Yeah, the only drawback is that availability can be spotty and inconsistent, especially if you want a specific configuration. Also, weirdly you can't do trade-ins with refurbs, from what I can tell.
I run Plex on mine, though it's my PC primarily. Also runs a Minecraft server. No complaints so far. I don't see it pushing the CPU usage high, so yeah it could be considered overkill, but it's energy-efficient regardless.
If you want even more triggering, it's actually the Mac mini. The "m" is lower-case.
Very good offer. Recently Apple products are on discount at Amazon.
I bought a refurbed MBP13 M1 that still had Apple Care+ on it from the previous owner. Tried to buy it myself and Apple Support told me it was already covered. Machine itself as been flawless from day one and the money saved has made it even sweeter.
Last edited:
Yeah I sold my maxed out Intel Mac Mini and eGPU because the M1 was faster in every way for what I like to do (video and photo editing)
and I pocketed an extra 1k
True and true. I wasn't gonna trade my ancient iMac for $350 credit. Sold it to a buddy for the same figure. Problem solved. Could probably get a bit more on Ebay but I don't want to ship that monster. I got lucky that the 16gb/1tb configuration was available when I bought. I looked again a few days later - no more (for now).
How much shorter? We don't know. The refurb could be a "DOA" return and as such has no SSD wear. Or maybe it was used in a server rack and pounded on relentlessly already (seems very unlikely but hey). I'm not the least bit concerned. For my home use, it will last longer than I keep the machine, by a factor of years.
How ancient? I assumed that my 2008 iMac would be too old to get a credit, but now your post has me wondering.
I just started using it as a home media server. The vast majority of our stuff is served off a Windows desktop NAS. I attached a Samsung T3 (500 GB) to the mini and performance is fine. I think that we don't have more than two users streaming at any time though. I'm considering putting in a 2 TB SSD on it to serve all of the home media stuff. I'm sure that the mini is far more efficient than the Windows desktop even though it's quite efficient.